Manufacturing Company’s Challenges Managing Drafting and Modeling Process

In a post-pandemic era, manufacturing companies have realized that managing drafting and modeling team is not an ideal option. There are a lot of challenges that come with in-house engineering, drafting, or modeling team. This quick guide will explain some challenges and what you can do to eliminate these headaches, save money, and preserve time.

The Challenge with Managing Drafting and Modeling Resources

There are several challenges when managing a team of drafters and modelers. For reference, here are some of the manufacturing companies’ most significant pain points.

Managing the Workforce

Managing non-core functions like drafting can take up most of your time. You will likely need to oversee and sign off on their detail and design work, deal with design review meetings, go through physical testing reports, and perform regular status updates to track the progress of projects.

Your productive hours are wasted by just managing your team by a certain point.

Finding Space and Resources for Everyone

The next challenge is physical constraints. You will need desks, chairs, floor space for everyone, and expensive job-critical equipment.

Buying and maintaining CAD workstations that can handle 3D modeling is more expensive than you might realize.

Providing Training, IT, and HR Support

A high hidden cost is all the peripheral services that go into running a drafting and modeling team. Manufacturing companies experience months of slow work at first as the team gets trained, then continued financial pain as you pay for IT support and an HR department. Depending on the size of your business, these requirements might be legally required and quite pricy.

It is Tough Finding Drafting & Modeling Workforce

Unless you have a dedicated recruiter on your staff, you will have to spend time sifting through applicants and posting the job on different job boards. Surprisingly, finding a team of qualified, impressive, dedicated, and experienced drafters is not easy.

Once you find suitable applicants, they might charge a premium since their skills are so valuable.

Dealing with Seasonal Demand

You probably have busy periods and slow periods in your operation. There are periods when clients will be on budgetary freezes and times right after wrapping a large project. During this time, your drafting and modeling staff is on the bench.

Should you lay off your team every eight months, or should you waste money paying them when there isn't enough work to occupy them?

Luckily, outsourcing is the third option that fills the gap. The offshore managed services will only assign as many CAD professionals as you need and give you the flexibility to scale up or down your requirement on short notice.

Maintaining CAD Versions and Licenses

Dealing with the CAD side of things is always additional work. What are you supposed to do if your client uses Inventor, your new designer favors CREO, and your legacy work is on SolidWorks?

An even worse scenario is when your customer needs files in a newer CAD version. Typically, there is no backward compatibility, so it might entail purchasing a brand-new license to meet their demands.

Offshore design teams can access different CAD programs and use the newest versions to back-save for compatibility. It means you will consistently deliver the suitable file, and your work will always be usable by your team, customers, and vendors.

Tough to Scale Business

Growing your business should be every product manufacturer's goal. However, it would be best if you increased your design team at the same rate, or else overworking and burnout will cause your unit to quit.

Instead of going through the hiring process every few months, the team's supervisor can quickly assign more people to your account, allowing you to scale immediately.

Money Spent on the Talent

For product developers, paying wages is typically the most considerable expense. Once the designs are finalized and manufacturing starts, sales will start making money for the equipment and unit costs.

Still, you'll need to keep paying your designers, which typically charge a premium. With an offshore design team, you'll pay a fraction of the cost for the same level of quality and design prowess. The difference in livable wages can lead to more money in your pocket while still paying an impressive salary to someone outside the US.

Conclusion

It's becoming more popular for companies to outsource their drafting and modeling. An offshore team will take care of your drafting and modeling projects without you needing to manage them. Turning to an offshore solution can free up more of your time, save money, and eliminate countless headaches.